Customer Reviews

Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I agree with the previous reviewer (Thomas Duff) that this little sucker can be used as get-up-to-speed-quick guide for a complex product. I found the Eclipse on-line help and tutorials to be voluminous, but lacking in... I don't know, "usability" maybe? There's so much of it (like the product's menus and options) that it's difficult to find out how to do the 80% of the normal, everyday stuff that developers do. (You hear the same complaint about Microsoft Word.)
Anyway, if you follow this guide you'll get a quick tour of how to do the "usual stuff", i.e. the 80%. I thought the chapters on "Tips and Tricks" and "Help and Community" were especially useful. I could have done without 30 page Appendix on "Commands".

The most common comment from the people I showed this book to was "I wish I had it when I started using Eclipse".

While this is a very small book, the contents have been selected to give you a best start with the main features of the Eclipse IDE. The topics are short but concise and include scattered tips for the points of interest.

If you're just starting with this IDE, the Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide will give you a great head start and will continue helping you as a lovely reference to refer back to as the features become familiar. Having all of these critical features pointed out earlier will save you a lot of bother in the future, since you'll be annoyed if you only find out about them much later by accident or experimentation!

Experienced users are less likely to get much from it though. The authors made a decision between content and size, and I feel they chose to stick with a smaller, simpler book than I would have expected. There is a final section on places to go for more information, but it just refers to various community sites.

I wish I had this book when I started using Eclipse.

Short, sweet, and to the point... Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide by Ed Burnette.

Contents: Introduction; Workbench 101; Java Done Quick; Debugging; Unit Testing with JUnit; Tips and Tricks; Views; Short Takes; Help and Community; Commands; Index

Given that this book is only 117 pages, I really wondered how useful it might be. Maybe a list of things for Eclipse veterans that they could find quickly. Since most O'Reilly pocket guides seem to assume some level of knowledge to begin with, I thought that the target audience for this might be somewhat limited.

Wrong...

I'm actually surprised that this book could be used by someone who has never seen Eclipse, and there's a pretty good chance that they could get up and running with it in short order. That's not to say that a larger, more tutorial-style book wouldn't also be helpful, or that they will get everything they need in this pocket guide. But there are plenty of techno-geeks out there who just want the basic facts presented in quick fashion to get them started, and then they'll take it from there. And this book definitely delivers on that. Granted, I use Eclipse and have read a number of other books on the topic, but I could have used this one my first time out. You could almost think of it as 117 pages of bound documentation for Eclipse that prevents you from having to print out something you downloaded from the Eclipse website. Better yet, it's *readable*!

If you're going to be using Eclipse on a full-time basis in your job or for software development, definitely check into one of the larger books out there to get all the gritty details and minutiae about the software. But if you've just skimmed the surface in the past or you need to get a quick intro to get up to speed, this is definitely a book that will be worth your while...

When I decided to begin Java development, my only other IDE experience was with Visual Studio. I needed to get up to speed with Eclipse, and did not want to read a 600 - 1000 page book that teaches you every single nook and cranny about the application. This book was exactly what I needed. I wanted a fast read that showed me the "Eclipse way". I even got more than I hoped for in the form of the tips and tricks section and community chapter. The book contains a good intro to JUnit testing, which I did not expect to find in such a small book.

With this book's limited space, it takes the great approach of showing by doing. It has you write several very small programs and then walks you through the features that Eclipse offers to augment that code. While this does not apply to the Tips and Tricks section (there is just too much info to write an individual program for every page), it does give you many links for further reading and investigation.

Overall, I feel like I finished about a 300-page book in only the 2 hours it took me to finish this. I would definitely recommend this for anyone in the position of needing to pick up Eclipse IDE's basic usage very fast.

I expected a little more from this book than creating a simple java file and compiling it. This book is for someone who is new to IDEs. This is *NOT* for someone trying for a quick reference to migrate from another IDE to Eclipse - which was my purpose.

I found the book to contain several tips and tricks that were new to me and I have been using Eclipse for over two years now. I would highly recommend this book to new Eclipse IDE users to help you get a leg up on learning the Eclipse IDE. I found this book well worth the price and will be looking for more pocket guide books by O'Reilly to add to my bookshelf.

I've come to expect a lot from O'Reilly guides, and this one didn't let me down. It really helped me past some areas of confusion I had with Eclipse, although I think I may want a larger book eventually that gets into more detail on some of the add-ins.

Eclipse has tons of options and this guide will get you typing source code within 5 minutes.

I thought this would be a handy little "tips and tricks" reference. It basically just tells you all the obvious stuff you already figured out on your own. Save your money and just use the doc from the internet.